Passport Applications

Debate between Bill Esterson and Yvette Cooper

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

That is a very important point and I will come on to some of the problems with the emergency measures the Home Secretary has introduced, because it is clear that they are not yet working.

The problem is that the Home Office simply did not listen to the warnings. Why did the Home Secretary not act in January when the Passport Office says it first realised there was a problem? Why did she not act in February when applications kept going up? My right hon. Friend the Member for Delyn, the shadow Immigration Minister, wrote to the Immigration Minister in March, three months ago, to warn him about the problem. Why did she not act then? [Interruption.] The Home Secretary sits on the Front Bench and says that she did act. How come so many people are still waiting so long for their passports, when they have paid so much extra to get them on time? Why did the Home Secretary not do enough in April, when more and more MPs’ complaints started coming in? Why did she not act in May, when diplomats warned her the system was not working? Why, even in June, did she spend days denying there was a backlog, denying there was a problem and boasting about meeting all the targets?

The Prime Minister claimed last week that the Home Office has been on it since January. On what? It certainly was not on it even last week. The Home Secretary did not have her eye on the ball. She was too busy dealing with the Education Secretary’s hissy fits and too busy blaming everyone else. She said last week it was the seasonal upsurge. How British—it really must be the weather to blame! She then said that the problem was an unprecedented increase in demand—the Home Secretary blames the passport crisis on people wanting passports. The Prime Minister blamed identity cards. Conservative Back Benchers even claimed it was a crisis manufactured by the Opposition. With this Home Secretary, it is always someone else’s fault. She blames the weather, the holidaymakers, the economy, the Labour party, the civil service and even the Education Secretary—we will join her in that, but round in circles they go. We have known for some time that the Government are not going anywhere, but now no one else is going anywhere.

When will the crisis be over? Two weeks ago, the Home Secretary said that 98% of targets were being met. This week, the Passport Office chief executive said that 90% were being met. It is getting worse, not better. How many months will it take to have the system back on track? What difference will the new measures make now? The Home Secretary has said that there will be 250 extra staff. It is clear from the Passport Office chief executive that many of them are still being trained. In addition, they are coming from other parts of the Home Office, including borders. Just as this is a busy time for the Passport Office, it is an increasingly busy time at our borders. We know that customs checks are not being done, so what else is being put at risk? Is the Home Secretary confident that she now has enough staff in place to clear the backlog? If she has enough, surely she can give us a timetable on when applications and processing will be back to normal, and when families can be reassured that they will not face delays.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend will appreciate that many of the staff in Liverpool are constituents of mine. They are extremely concerned at the lack of urgency that she has very well described. Does she agree that the Passport Office refusal to meet the trade union after repeated requests demonstrates what a fiasco this is, and how badly the problem has been approached? The union is attempting to help resolve the issue. Surely that offer of help should have been taken at the earliest opportunity.

[Yvette Cooper]

I hope the management and work force can work together. It is helpful that the union has shown support to sort the problem out and get things done in time.